I haven't heard anything more about this since June. Where did the money come from, rollingstone?

rollingstone

Posted 7:14 pm, 12/03/2018

North Carolina must maintain a balanced budget. it's the law.. so if you give more money to a project it means you've taken away from someplace else. any guesses?..anybody?

Pappyspal

Posted 8:38 pm, 11/04/2018

Just another money grab helped along by suitable palm-greasing on Jones Street.

Hillary is a murderer

Posted 2:40 pm, 11/04/2018

Anti doesn’t want money to go to improving the sex offender database. I think saving one or more children from a sex offender is worth at least $500,000. What do you think?

aFicIoNadoS

Posted 2:37 pm, 11/04/2018

Yeah, unless that effort doesn’t do anything.

riskybusiness

Posted 2:30 pm, 11/04/2018

Regardless of public ties or agenda, there is no price on any extra effort to help protect children.

antithesis

Posted 10:15 pm, 06/19/2018

In the guise of increasing funding to the states Sheriff departments, the new NC budget is trying to hide $500,000 to be given to a software company that's represented by a lobbyist firm that contributes heavily to certain candidates.

New money for an improved sex offender database is one of dozens of spending items tucked into a budget that for the first time in modern history never got a hearing in a legislative committee. Those hearings would have allowed the idea to be publicly vetted.

Legislative leaders in the Republican-dominated General Assembly instead released the budget bill in a conference report that was then submitted to both chambers for a yes or no vote. It passed largely along party lines and survived Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's veto.

The sex offender provision now represents a business opportunity for ScribSoft Holdings, the Southern California company that pushed for it.

It turns out that ScribSoft, aka Permitium, aka Scribbles, is the only company bidding on this software, and was the main lobbyist train behind getting the money allocation. This company used to get $2 million a year from NC, and 2 years ago it was cut to $1 million. Now, they've lobbied to get $500,000 of it back without any oversight or public discussion.

Former Sen. Patrick Ballantine (R), Wilmington, began working for the lobbyist firm in 2017.

And the money doesn't show up on the money report because they're diverting funds that were originally approved for police body cameras.